


The Pencil Box

by everscribble



Category: All Creatures Great and Small (TV)
Genre: Family, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:28:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29263527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everscribble/pseuds/everscribble
Summary: "'Please, Uncle Siegfried. Please.' I put my hand on top of the pencil box, and before I know it my fingers have wrapped around the box's edge to grip the wood so tightly it hurts my bones. 'We can't just let them die.'" Siegfried's seven-year-old niece comes home from school with a pencil box and a plea. Based on the 2020 series.
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing of the All Creatures Great and Small world.
> 
> Note: In this AU, a teenage Tristan impregnated and married a girl named Cecilia, who died in childbirth. The baby, Madeleine, stayed in the care of Siegfried and Evelyn while Tristan went to school. This story takes place seven years later, shortly before "You've Got to Dream".

When I come through the front door, Mrs. Hall is right here, sweeping the foyer. Which is not ideal. Mrs. Hall is one of my three most favorite people in the world, make no mistake, but her being right here, sweeping the foyer, right _now_ . . . No. Not ideal at all.

She stops mid-sweep, eyebrows close together. "What are you doing back already?"

I usually come home for lunch, but there's still an hour or so before lunchtime, so it's perfectly reasonable of Mrs. Hall to ask this question. I don't answer her anyway. I just walk past her, quickly, holding Miss Stirling's pencil box tightly between my hands, tightly against my belly. "Where's Uncle Siegfried?" Surgery and the exam room are to my right, the parlor is to my left, and the doors to all three rooms are open. Uncle Siegfried is in none of them. "He's not out, is he?"

"Just finished an operation. What's – "

" _Uncle Siegfried!"_ I walk down the hall and turn the first corner, so I'm at the foot of the stairs. I think about going up but don't, because at this time of day, Uncle Siegfried is more likely to be in the dispensary than anywhere upstairs. I walk on, taking a deep breath. "Uncle Sieg – !"

My uncle comes around the hall's next corner just as I'm about to. I only just manage to get out of his way. He's wearing his white coat and his glasses, and, because he's busy frowning at a piece of paper in his hand, I'm not even sure he's noticed me until he says, "Don't shout in the house, Maddy."

It's not the first time he's given me that instruction, but it's an utterly _ridiculous_ instruction for _him_ to be giving anyone, as I've pointed out before. I might have done so again, were this a different situation. But it's not. And there are more important things.

"Uncle Siegfried –"

He's already passed by, though, and _this_ time when he turns a corner he nearly runs into Mrs. Hall, who's left her broom somewhere. I think she was following me. Mrs. Hall is not my uncle. Things cannot get past Mrs. Hall.

Uncle Siegfried pushes his glasses up so that they're sitting on his head. "Mrs. Hall, the Watermills' sheep, the one with the limp. How bad did Marcus say it was?"

"Said she'd had it for a few days, but were keeping up with the flock well enough 'til this morning."

"A few days – for God's sake." Uncle Siegfried walks past _Mrs. Hall_ now, and I do, too – again – and follow him to Surgery. He steps through the door, peeling off his coat. "It never fails with Marcus. He waits too long to call us, the animal suffers, his _livelihood_ suffers, and who does he blame for the results of his own incompetence?" He hangs his coat. "Never himself, certainly, no, absolutely not." And my uncle passes me by _again_ , without so much as a pause. "The man'll never learn."

"Uncle Siegfried –"

"I am _working_ , Maddy." He gives me a pointed over-the-shoulder look. "For heaven's sake, child, have some patience. Mrs. Hall, when is Mrs. Sturgis bringing her dog?"

"Two o'clock."

"Excellent. I'll drive up to the Watermill farm now, and with any –" Uncle Siegfried snaps his head my way, eyebrows close together, the way Mrs. Hall's were before. He pops out his arm, checks his watch, and looks back to me. "Why are you here? What's wrong? Has something happened?"

Every second since I stepped into the foyer, I've been desperately trying to get his attention. Now I have it. I shift my feet, adjust my hold on the pencil box, and open my mouth.

"Um . . ." is what comes out.

I had no doubt about this plan when I assured Miss Stirling my uncle would know what to do. No doubt as I made my way home as fast as I thought I could without moving the pencil box too much. But now – now, Mrs. Hall and Uncle Siegfried are both staring at me. And Uncle Siegfried has noticed the pencil box. His eyebrows are still close together, but he's squinting his eyes, too. "Maddy?" he says in the slow way he says things when he wants answers but he's not sure he'll like them.

I look between him and Mrs. Hall – she has her head down and one eyebrow up – and I lick my lips, bite down on the bottom one, and pull back the lid of the pencil box. Uncle Siegfried and Mrs. Hall step closer. I tilt the box towards them as much as I dare, which is only a little. I don't want to disturb the contents.

A moment passes. Uncle Siegfried lets out a long sigh.

"Are those what I think they are?" Mrs. Hall's voice is low.

I glance down at the four of them, tiny, pink, and just a bit wiggly. They're not old enough to be more than a _bit_ wiggly, I think. "They're babies," I say, because Mrs. Hall likes babies, baby humans and baby everything-elses.

Well. Most everything-elses.

"I can see that. Of what species?"

It's Uncle Siegfried who answers her, in the tired tone he usually only uses at the end of the day. "One which belongs to the genus _Rattus_ , Mrs. Hall."

Mrs. Hall rolls her head back before giving me the look she gives me when I've – as my uncle puts it – _dumbfounded_ her _._ "You brought rats into this house?"

"They're only babies!" I look at Uncle Siegfried, who's still looking at the rats. His mouth is tight in a way I can't read. "Miss Stirling found them at school. They were in the storage room. There are rat traps all over the storage room right now, Mr. Clooney insisted on putting them there, because – well, there's a bit of a rat problem."

"You don't say?" says Mrs. Hall.

"Their mother was got by a trap this morning. Miss Stirling thinks that was their mother, anyway. She didn't know what to do when she found the babies. She didn't want to just . . . kill them. Or let Mr. Clooney kill them. So I told her I would take them." I swallow and, in a small way, shrug. "I couldn't just let them die."

Uncle Siegfried reaches out to me – no, to the box. Slowly, gently, he closes it. "Darling –" And his voice has gone soft, far too soft – "most likely they'll die no matter what we do."

I clutch the box even more tightly and move back a little.

"And even if they didn't, even if they made it to adulthood, they'd never be able to survive on their own out in the world."

"I'll take care of them!"

Uncle Siegfried's head sort of twitches back. Mrs. Hall turns to him, and my uncle mutters, "Yes, yes, thank you, walked right into it, I know . . ." and scratches his head, eyeing the floor.

My throat is closing up, and I don't want it to. I'm trying to stop it, but I'm not sure I can, and I have to work too hard to say, "Please, Uncle Siegfried. Please." I put my hand on top of the pencil box, and before I know it my fingers have wrapped around the box's edge to grip the wood so tightly it hurts my bones. "We can't just let them die." I've already said that, or said close enough, but it's all I know to say now. It seems like the most important thing.

Mrs. Hall, she's giving me a certain look, the same one she gave me the time I'd been running in the house and had accidentally knocked a bottle of Uncle Siegfried's whiskey off a table and broken it, and Mrs. Hall felt sorry for me but knew she'd have to tell him – well, make me tell him – what had happened anyway. I hated this look then, hated it hated it hated it, and I hate it even more now, hate it hate it hate it hate it _hate it hate it hate it_.

Uncle Siegfried looks again at the box and then to me, but I look back at him for only a second because after that my sight goes blurry, and that's when Uncle Siegfried says, "Yes, well," and touches my hand, the one gripping the box so tightly, and nudges it away to make room for his own. He lifts the box from me. "As I said, they'll probably die no matter what we do, so don't be upset when that happens. Or, well – be upset, that's fine, but don't be surprised. Come, come." He puts his hand on my back and guides me into Surgery. "If they're to have any chance at all, we have to get them warm. And you'll have to learn to feed them, young lady, they're _your_ responsibility."


	2. Chapter 2

I pick up the phone just after it's finished its third ring – or its sixth, really, because the rings come in pairs, _RIIIING-RIIIING!_ – and I have it to my ear before I've even stopped running. "Darrowby 2297."

It's Sunday evening. I always answer the phone on Sunday evening.

"Hello, Darrowby 2297. I'm hoping to speak to the most beautiful girl in the world. Is she about?"

I grin. "Daddy."

"Oh, it _is_ you. Lucky me." His voice sounds too far away, like he's in a bucket down the hall. "How are you, my love?"

"I'm well. Well, not completely well." I lean against the wall. From here, I can see right into Uncle Siegfried's office, see his desk, and, beside his typewriter – nearly blocking it from view, actually – what appears to be a bundle of rags. Or perhaps a very poorly wrapped present. It's neither of those things, though. "Two of the rats have died."

"Sorry, two of the . . . what?"

"Oh, right, you don't know." I only speak to Daddy on Sundays, and we've only had the rats since Wednesday. It's hard to keep track of these things. "Well, I already wrote you a letter about it, but I'll tell you now, too." And I tell him about Miss Stirling finding the rats and my bringing them home and all of it.

"So," Daddy says once I've done that, "you're . . . raising them? You're raising the rats?"

"Yes. Uncle Siegfried and me. Mrs. Hall is helping too, of course. And, well, those two have died, but . . . Uncle Siegfried said that could happen. We're doing what we can. _All_ we can. And the other two are doing well, I think. They're starting to grow fur. Uncle Siegfried says they'll open their eyes in another week or so. If they make it."

"You're raising rats," Daddy says again, in a slow way.

"Yes, Daddy." I'm not sure how I could have been clearer. "They live in Uncle Siegfried's study, on the desk, where Jess can't reach them. I don't think Jess would hurt them, but Uncle Siegfried says it's better to be safe than sorry. And it's not easy, taking care of the babies."

"No, I imagine it's not."

"They need feeding every three hours, and the milk needs to be just warm enough, and _not_ hot, and you have to be very careful about the whole thing. What you do is, you dip a bit of rag in the milk and let the babies suck on that. Only you can't give them too much milk at once, just a drop at a time. Otherwise it could get into their lungs, you see."

"Can't have that."

"Absolutely not. And I feed them during the day, when I'm not at school. Uncle Siegfried says I do it very well."

"I'm sure you do."

"He feeds them after I've gone to bed, and then once more during the night, and he and Mrs. Hall both do it when I'm at school."

"And Mrs. Hall? She's . . . content with the situation?"

"Well, she wasn't totally, at first. But she's come around. Somewhat." I giggle. "And Daddy, it's the strangest thing – Do you know what you have to do after you feed the babies?"

"I've a vague idea, Princess."

I'm not totally sure what _vague_ means, so I just go on. "Well, they can't _go_ by themselves, not at this age. Their mother helps them along, normally, by licking them, but of course their mother isn't here, so after you feed the rats, you have to wet a rag with warm water and lift their tail and –"

"Yes, darling, I understand. And you're absolutely right. That is quite strange."

"Uncle Siegfried says we'll only have to do that until around the same time they open their eyes." I use my foot to draw a circle on the floor. "If they make it."

"Maddy, darling, are you sure you . . . ?" I wait for him to finish, and then he goes on, "They _are_ rats, you know."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, it's just that . . . Typically, rats aren't . . ." And then I have to wait for him to finish again. What happens instead is that a lot of static comes through the phone, which is what happens when someone sighs into it, and Daddy says, "Those babies are extremely lucky to have found someone to take such good care of them."

That makes me feel warm and glowing and full in my chest, and I smile.

. . . . .

The alarm clock we use to keep track of the rats' feeding schedule goes off while I'm still talking to Daddy. I'm supposed to feed the babies if I'm home and not in bed, but Uncle Siegfried passes by on his way to the kitchen and waves for me to keep talking, which makes me happy. Normally, Uncle Siegfried has Daddy and me keep these conversations short, as Daddy's at school in Edinburgh, which is far away, and so these calls are expensive. Really, though, Daddy and I haven't been talking all that long, I suppose.

"Do you know how hard it is to knead dough, Daddy?" I'm saying when Uncle Siegfried passes again, going to his office now, carrying a rag and a little bowl I know to be filled with warm milk.

"How hard is it to knead dough, my love?"

"So much harder than I ever thought!" I say as Uncle Siegfried sets the milk on his desk. He lifts the towel off the cage. "I helped Mrs. Hall bake bread the other day, which I suppose I've never really done before, and I mixed the ingredients, and _at first_ I kneaded the dough, but . . ."

Something's wrong.

Uncle Siegfried's stopped, he's still as a statue, with his eyes on the cage. On what's inside. I've been leaning, but now I stand up straight, and now, now Uncle Siegfried's moving again, but instead of moving the way he would move to feed the babies, he moves from the front of the desk to the side of it. So his back is to me. So I can't see the cage.

"Maddy?" comes Daddy's voice. "Sweetheart, are you there?"

Uncle Siegfried's shoulders move. I lower the phone. "Another one?"

Uncle Siegfried glances back. "What? No, no, darling. Continue your conversation. Everything's fine."

His voice isn't normal. It's a bit, a _bit_ too high to be normal. Uncle Siegfried almost never lies, because lying is almost always wrong and Uncle Siegfried is good and so he almost never does wrong things. That means that when he _does_ lie, in one of those rare times when lying might actually _not_ be wrong, he's not very good at it. Not very good at all.

I turn away from him, from the whole thing, and press my body against the wall and the phone back to my ear.

" – hear me, Maddy?"

"I have to go, Daddy."

From behind me – "Maddy, you _don't_. Talk to your father."

But I don't want to. And I _never_ don't want to talk to Daddy, it's my favourite part of the week, always, but . . . talking to Daddy is a happy thing. And suddenly it's not a time for happy things.

"Did you say you have to go? Already?" Daddy says. "Is your uncle getting even stingier in his old age?"

"It's not him, it's . . . Another one of the babies died."

"Oh, Maddy, I'm sorry."

I rub an eye. "If one of them died, that means there's only one of them left, and I want to check on her."

"Surely Uncle Siegfried can do that."

"I want to, though. They're . . . She's my responsibility."

"Darling, don't be sad, it's only a ra – it's, uh, it's only a . . . a rather common thing. That happens in life. Things . . . passing on."

"I know."

There's a lot of static again. "Love, I don't want to hang up when you're sad."

I don't know how to help him with that.

Then Daddy says, "Hey, Maddy. Know what makes me happy?"

I don't want to play this game now. But it's a game that you're _supposed_ to play when you don't want to play it, Daddy says. So I make myself say, "What?"

"Monkeys mocking milkmen. What makes you happy?"

I bite my lip. "Neighbors . . . nicking . . . noses."

"Nicking _noses_? What horrid neighbors!"

I don't mean to smile, I really don't. It just happens. Just a bit. "What makes you happy?" I ask, because it's the rule.

"Let's see, _O, O_. . . Ostriches . . . obviously oozing."

"Oozing what?"

"Probably best not to think about it. What makes you happy?"

"Puppies . . . peeling potatoes. What makes you happy?"

"Quails quoting . . . quackers."

"What's a quacker?"

"Why, my dear Madeleine, it is very _obviously_ another name for a duck."

And I laugh, finally. Not in a big way, but I do, and Daddy says, "There it is," like he knew it had to happen sooner or later. And he did know, really. He can always make me laugh, eventually, no matter what, even when I don't want to. "Feel a bit better now?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then go on, do what you need to do. I'll talk to you next week. And I'll be counting the minutes until I do so."

"Alright, Daddy."

"Sleep well, darling, have a sweet dream. Love you to bits."

"Love you to bits, too." I hang up the phone. Hanging up after a call with Daddy always makes me sad. So now I'm just extra sad. I take a deep breath before I walk down the hall.

Uncle Siegfried's sitting in the desk chair now. The rag is in his hand. He's pulled the towel off the cage again. The cage is open, and inside of it, a single tiny rat kicks her legs and moves along the fleece that covers the bottom of the cage. Trying to find someone to cuddle against. "She's all alone now," I say.

"No, she's not. She has us."

I sigh, because that's not the same as having her siblings, and Uncle Siegfried knows that.

"She's stronger than the others were," Uncle Siegfried says. Then, after a moment, and in a different, softer tone, "But we shouldn't take that as a guarantee of anything. Of course."

The baby has patches of grey fuzz on her back and belly. Just like the other baby. The one who just died. Patches of fuzz don't mean anything, apparently. "I don't understand it."

Uncle Siegfried closes the cage, pulls the towel over it again, and readjusts one of the wrapped-up hot water bottles resting against it. "Understand what?"

The baby needs to be fed, her milk is getting cold, and maybe I should say this, but he knows it better than I do, so instead I say, "We've done everything they needed. We fed them, and kept them warm . . . Why do they keep dying? What are we doing wrong?"

Uncle Siegfried leans forward. "We're doing absolutely nothing wrong, Maddy. We've done everything we possibly could for them, I promise."

"Then _why_?"

"Because . . . it's just something that happens sometimes when a baby loses its mother. Even with proper care, there's a lower chance – sometimes a _much_ lower chance – of the baby surviving.”

"I did!"

For a few seconds, Uncle Siegfried's mouth forms shapes without any words coming out of it. "Humans are different."

He doesn't explain this further. If I felt differently, I might ask him to, but I don't feel differently, I feel like I feel. Which is sad. Even if Daddy made me laugh. Even if Uncle Siegfried told me from the start not to be surprised if the rats died. And I'm not surprised, I'm not.

But I'm sad.

"Can she sleep in my room tonight?" I don't like how little my voice sounds, but I don't feel up to trying to make it sound any different. "I'll get up to feed her."

"Better we keep her in a place she knows, Maddy."

"Then can I sleep down here? We could just move her into the parlor. Surely that won't feel much different to her than your office."

"Maddy, I don't think –"

"Please, Uncle Siegfried. I don't want her to be alone."

Uncle Siegfried clasps his hands and looks down the hall. I don't think he's looking for anything, though, I think he's just . . . looking. And now he looks back to me. "Yes, alright. Go tell Mrs. Hall I said you could sleep on the sofa. She'll help you make it up."

"Thank you." I touch the cage. Or, the towel over the cage. "Could you tell Mrs. Hall, though? I want to feed her."

"Oh, don't be silly, Maddy," my uncle says. "Mrs. Hall is perfectly capable of feeding herself."

I smile. Just a bit. Even though I don't want to. Uncle Siegfried can make that happen. He's like Daddy in that way.

Uncle Siegfried smiles just a bit, too, then stands and directs me to sit where he was just sitting. I do. He brushes some hair behind my ear. "Maddy, you mustn't get your hopes up, but it's also important not to _lose_ hope." He nods at the cage. "That one still has a fighting chance. And don't forget, that's more than she would have had if not for you."

"And you."

"Mm." He squeezes my shoulder. "Go on, then, get to it. I'll fetch Mrs. Hall."

He leaves, shoes rapping against the floor, and I lift the towel and open the cage. The little rat has her body and nose pointed right my way, like she was expecting me. "It's alright." I reach for the milk and the rag beside it. "You're not alone. I know it feels that way, but really, you're not." I pick her up, gently, gently. She wiggles in my palm. My uncle's right. She's stronger than the others were. "We'll take good care of you. And you can stay with us for all your life." I dip the corner of the rag in the milk and bring it her lips. "It's a great place to live, this house. It really is."


	3. Chapter 3

**Two Months Later**

Uncle Siegfried's voice floats in from just outside: "This is the animal shed . . ." and I press the carrot piece into my palm and put my hands on Jab just in time for the bottom half of the shed door to swing open and match up with the top half. Uncle Siegfried steps part of the way in, wearing the knee-high boots he always wears when he's going out to see an animal on a farm somewhere, and another man steps in after him, then ahead of him. I don't know this man. He's old, but not as old as Uncle Siegfried, more like as old as Daddy. His hair is slicked back in a smart way and he's wearing a dark suit and carrying a box.

He notices me, sitting cross-legged not far from his feet, before Uncle Siegfried does. "Oh! Hello, there."

Uncle Siegfried looks where he looks. "Ah. My niece, Madeleine." He points across the little room, to the wall with all the cages. Most of them are filled with rabbits or (generally not-quiet) cats, but two or three are empty and open. "It's that cage, there . . ." The man carries the box to that-cage-there, and Uncle Siegfried leans against the doorframe, watching. "You'll be responsible for feeding the animals morning and night. If successful, of course . . . Maddy, you're out here awfully early this afternoon. Am I to take it Miss Stirling gave you no homework whatsoever?"

I give Jab the carrot piece _meant_ to be a reward for her tricks, because it's the only way to keep her still. She sits on her haunches to positively gobble the thing. "Miss Stirling gave us only a _bit_ of homework." I scratch behind Jab's ears, peeking at Uncle Siegfried.

He's holding one eyebrow too high. "And . . . you've already completed it?"

"Jab knows _Sit up_ now."

Uncle Siegfried's head tilts low.

"I was just saying hi." Before my uncle can say anything back, I point my head at the strange man. "Who's this?"

It's the man himself who answers, bending over the box with both his hands inside. "Uh, I'm James. I'm . . ."

"Mr. Herriot's going out for the job as my assistant." Uncle Siegfried scratches his temple. Mr. Herriot, meanwhile, pulls from the box a most unhappy-looking black cat.

I hold Jab a bit more tightly, which doesn't bother her at all, because she has a carrot and so she's happy with all the world. "I thought you weren't going to have any more assistants?"

"And I thought we had an understanding about work coming before play." Uncle Siegfried nods at Jab, both of his eyebrows high now, which means he means what he's saying. I lower my shoulders, and also sort of my head. "Put her up, please."

"Yes, Uncle Siegfried." I push up from the ground, holding Jab in one hand, using the other to press against the wall for balance and then to knock straw from my dress. Jab's cage is against the far-right wall of the room, between the door and the wall with all the other cages. Hers is a particularly nice cage, a _tall_ cage, because rats like to climb, and it's filled with little boxes and newspaper, because rats also like to build nests.

Mr. Herriot reaches Jab's cage just as I do, probably because I'm somewhat between him and the way out, and guides open the cage door for me. "She's yours?"

I nod. "Her name's Jab. Well, Jabberwock, but –" I tilt my hands to ease Jab onto one of her shelves – "we call her Jab. She was orphaned as a baby. We raised her."

"Lucky rat." Mr. Herriot closes the cage, and Jab jumps up, wrapping her paws – which are more like hands, really – around the bars and sniffing like mad. Mr. Herriot gives her his finger to smell. "I hid one under my bed for a few weeks, when I was around your age."

"You _hid_ it?"

"Just long enough for it to heal. Poor thing had got his tail caught in a trap."

"And you got him out of it?"

"Not very practical of you," Uncle Siegfried says from behind me. Then: "Don't look at me like that, Maddy, we've discussed this. It's one thing to be fond of Jab. It's quite another to pretend her entire species lives in harmony with our own, or that it even _can_."

"They don't cause trouble on purpose." I say this because I don't want to say _nothing_ , but Uncle Siegfried's heard me say it already, he's heard me say it a lot. We've discussed this plenty, just as he said. None of those discussions have left me feeling settled afterwards, though, and I haven't enjoyed them much.

"And for that reason, I bear them no personal ill will." Uncle Siegfried gestures at Jab's cage. "Clearly."

"It _was_ very impractical," Mr. Herriot says before I can speak again. "There was a major infestation in our building at the time. The last thing anyone needed was another rat, but . . . Well, I came across him in that trap, struggling, scared . . . It all happened kind of fast, honestly." He watches Jab scurry up her cage wall. He shrugs a bit. "Couldn't just let him die. Couldn't bring myself to."

A moment passes. I turn to Uncle Siegfried. His head is low, his hands are in his pockets, and his eyes are on Mr. Herriot.

Then, as is his way, he snaps into action.

"Right, well . . . Chop-chop, Herriot, won't do to dilly-dally."

Mr. Herriot steps around me, half-turning and waving on his way to the door. "Pleasure to meet you. And . . . Jabberwock."

"Pleasure to meet you." I mean that, which I don't always. Or often, even. It's one of those things I say because I'm supposed to say it, normally, but no, that's not why I say it this time.

Mr. Herriot disappears out the door. Uncle Siegfried does not. " _You._ Homework." He jerks his head towards the outside, and I go.

Just before I pass him, though, and just before I'm to where Mr. Herriot can see or (I think) hear me, I whisper, "You should keep this one."

"Home. _Work_."

And so I dart out the door and into the sunshine without another word about it. Another word would probably be unnecessary, anyway. Uncle Siegfried and I, we tend to agree on these sorts of things – the things that really matter, I mean, like who he might hire to work with us for what could maybe be years. True, he sacked all his previous assistants quite, _quite_ earlier than that, unless they quit before he could, but Daddy told me once that all sorts of housekeepers came and went before Mrs. Hall found us. So, really, I think these things are just a matter of patience. And maybe, when it comes to Uncle Siegfried's assistants, we've been patient for just long enough.

I can hope, anyway.

**The End**

**. . . . .**

**A.N.: Thank you all for reading! Maddy's perspective will be explored further in a new story taking place during the show's storyline. There will also be at least one one-shot depicting an episode from her earlier childhood. If you've read this far, I certainly hope you continue reading the future stories, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on what's to come. Regardless, again, thank you for reading : )**


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